Atlantic City- “America’s Playground”
Part 1
By Joey Rickert
A picture of Atlantic City, the place where the street
names of Monpoly came from. Click to enlarge.
Atlantic City, sometimes called “America’s Playground”, is the city where all the street names of Monopoly came from. It is in New Jersey, 127 miles from Jersey Shore. (Yes, that Jersey Shore!) Please click on the map to have a look at the street names today. Notice how some of the streets that are next to each other on the board are also next to each other in real life!
Sadly, Atlantic City isn’t what is used to be. It is now a city full of casinos, hotels, and bars. There never was a B&O Railroad, one of Charles Darrow’s mistakes. Short Line wasn’t even the name of the railroad; it was called Shore Fast Line Railroad. There was another railroad called Jersey Central, which ran from New York City to Atlantic City. Darrow obviously didn’t put this railroad in the game.
Let’s take a quick trip clockwise from GO and talk about the streets. First come Baltic and Mediterranean- they aren’t much today, and they weren’t much in the time of Charles Darrow. Like most of the streets in Monopoly, they were named by a doctor named Jonathan Pitney and a civil engineer, R. B. Osborne. Baltic and Mediterranean were just too far from the beach/ocean to be popular. Now, on to Oriental, Vermont, and Connecticut. Connecticut is, in real life, two streets away from Vermont. Oriental is a short road running from north to south, intersecting Connecticut and Vermont. States Avenue, in the next color group, barely remains. States is now occupied by the Showboat Casino Hotel. It is a small nub of a street parallel to Virginia. In Darrow’s time, States was one of the prettiest streets in Atlantic City. It was lines with beautiful trees and flowers and expensive homes. These days, it is kind of sad to see how much it has been converted into a gambler’s paradise. Saint James Place, Tennessee, and New York are next. Saint James runs across an island from Boardwalk to Huron. Several blocks separate New York and Tennessee from the previously stated color group of streets. The oranges are now construction lots.
Click HERE to go to part two, the second half of the board. Thanks for looking!
Sadly, Atlantic City isn’t what is used to be. It is now a city full of casinos, hotels, and bars. There never was a B&O Railroad, one of Charles Darrow’s mistakes. Short Line wasn’t even the name of the railroad; it was called Shore Fast Line Railroad. There was another railroad called Jersey Central, which ran from New York City to Atlantic City. Darrow obviously didn’t put this railroad in the game.
Let’s take a quick trip clockwise from GO and talk about the streets. First come Baltic and Mediterranean- they aren’t much today, and they weren’t much in the time of Charles Darrow. Like most of the streets in Monopoly, they were named by a doctor named Jonathan Pitney and a civil engineer, R. B. Osborne. Baltic and Mediterranean were just too far from the beach/ocean to be popular. Now, on to Oriental, Vermont, and Connecticut. Connecticut is, in real life, two streets away from Vermont. Oriental is a short road running from north to south, intersecting Connecticut and Vermont. States Avenue, in the next color group, barely remains. States is now occupied by the Showboat Casino Hotel. It is a small nub of a street parallel to Virginia. In Darrow’s time, States was one of the prettiest streets in Atlantic City. It was lines with beautiful trees and flowers and expensive homes. These days, it is kind of sad to see how much it has been converted into a gambler’s paradise. Saint James Place, Tennessee, and New York are next. Saint James runs across an island from Boardwalk to Huron. Several blocks separate New York and Tennessee from the previously stated color group of streets. The oranges are now construction lots.
Click HERE to go to part two, the second half of the board. Thanks for looking!